Desire is Our will in Prayer

Tip! In order to accomplish His high purpose, Jesus showed us His purpose in answering our prayers when He said, "...That the Father may be glorified in the Son."

In prayer, we are fastened to the Name, merit and intercessory asset of Jesus Christ, our great High Priest. If we search down, below the accompanying conditions and forces in prayer, we will come to its key basis, which is contained in the human heart. It is not simply our need; it is our heart's yearning for what we need, and for what we feel impelled to pray for.

Desire is our will in action; a strong, conscious longing, excited in our inner nature, for some great good. Desire exalts the object we are longing for, and fixes our mind on it. It has choice, is immovable, has a fire in it; based on this or prayer is explicit and specific. It knows its need, feels and sees the thing that will meet it, and we hurry to obtain it.

Holy desire is helped by spiritual thought. Meditation on our spiritual need, and on God's readiness and ability to correct it, helps our desire to grow. Serious thought engaged in before praying, increases desire, makes it more insistent, and tends to save us from the menace of private prayer -- wandering thought. We fail much more in desire, than our outward expressions show. We retain the form and act spiritual, while our inner life fades and almost dies.

We should ask ourselves, whether the feebleness of our desires for God, the Holy Spirit, and for all the fullness of Christ, is the cause of our so little praying, and of our laziness in the exercise of prayer? Do we really feel the inward pulling of desire after heavenly treasures? Do the deep-seated groanings of desire stir our souls to mighty struggles?

Sadly for us! The fire burns altogether too low. The flaming heat of our soul has been toned down to a halfhearted lukewarm tickle. This, remember, was the central cause of the sad and desperate condition of the Laodicean Christians. The awful condemnation is written that they were "rich, and increased in goods and had need of nothing," and knew not that they "were wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind."

Again: I must ask - do we have that desire which presses us into close communion with God, which is filled with unutterable burnings, and holds us there through the agony of an intense and soul-stirred prayer? Our hearts need to be worked over so much, not only to get the evil out of them, but to get the good into them. And the foundation and inspiration to the incoming good, is strong, propelling desire.

This holy and eager flame in the soul awakens the interest of heaven, attracts the attention of God, and places at the disposal of those who exercise it, the exhaustless riches of Divine grace.